Can Hannibal be Saved?: Fannibals Unite!

UPDATE: The hashtag is #HannibalMicDrop. Please don’t use this until 9pm EST on Saturday.

I’ve been following the Hannibal cancellation and the #SaveHannibal movement since the cancellation was announced about two months back. Obviously, I’m upset one of my favourite shows was cancelled and am getting more and more downhearted as worse news comes in. The actors were released from their contracts and are moving on to other roles, Amazon (the guys who own the streaming rights to the show) passed on it, as did Netflix, who was everyone’s big hope and contender for saviour, thanks to Amazon not letting go of the rights. Now hopes turn to Hulu, a broadcast or cable network, or some other streaming site (or Netflix waiting until Amazon’s rights expire) to save the show, but the odds appear to most certainly not be in our favour (….Yes, I’m excited for the last Hunger Games movie too.). Or are they?

Theoretically, only Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen (Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter respectively) are necessary for the show to continue (at least for season 4 as season 5 is supposed to be “Silence of the Lambs”, though the rights for those characters are still under MGM’s iron fist) and technically only Mikkelsen and who ever they get to play their Clarice Starling alternative are needed from 5 onwards (Unless they decide to write Will into it somehow, which I’m all for). Caroline Dhavernas’s Alana Bloom, Raul Esparza’s Fredrick Chilton, and even Laurence Fishburne’s Jack Crawford can either be regulated to recurring or guest status, be replaced with other characters, or (In Bloom’s case since the original male character isn’t in the other books, though her role seems to be changed significantly so who knows) written out entirely. Matching up Dancy and Mikkelsen’s schedules is a lot easier than matching up a bunch of people’s.

Heck, the show could easily be finished with a movies series or series of online or direct to DVD specials or a miniseries. All we really need to do is wait a year or two for Bryan Fuller (the showrunner) to be finished with the first season of Starz’s American Gods (Also, Amazon, you seriously could not have waited to let them start production on another season? You are THAT lazy?). A movie could be out by 2017 or 2018. Goodness knows there are enough Marvel films coming out those two years (three per) to tide us over until whenever they decide to release it. Fuller, Dancy, and Mikkelsen have all expressed interest in returning and that’s really all we need.

Even if there’s no hope of the show returning to television, we can have hope that they won’t abandon the series. The Browncoats (Firefly fans) got their conclusion after three years, the Trekkies got full on movie continuations and TV spin offs after 10 years (13 if you ignore the first film. Which I do, readily), the Fannibals can get one too. But there’s no reason to lose hope just yet. Fuller is still looking into other possibilities and the studio has stated that the contracts expiring doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. They can still get the actors back, it’ll just be a longer HeAteUs (as we call the hiatus). but that was going to happen anyway with Fuller on American Gods. It’s not over until he says it is.

I once wrote on my Tumblr about the cancelation and what we can do to help get the show back. It still applies. Watch it on Hulu. Write to Hulu. Call Hulu. Same with any other streaming site or network that would be interested. Netflix is still interested, they just have to wait for Amazon’s rights to expire. Live tweet the show. Use the hashtags they give us. This week’s is #HannibalMicDrop. This is the last week for the foreseeable future so let’s give it our all!

We can still save our show. I was part of the #BringToonamiBack movement a few years ago and we won. We can win this too. We just have to be patient.

But remember to be polite and be considerate. Remember, we Eat the Rude. Don’t be a hypocrite.